Not Another Cinderella
by Starprincess
Summary: After escaping a life in of slavery, Ella runs away to a small inn to live out the rest of her days as a simple girl. Little does she know that fate will soon catch up with her. I finally updated, sorry that it took me so long!
1. Slave

AN: I love fairy tales so full of love and adventure. I really like Cinderella. I changed the plot alot, and there will be alot of twists and turns. I hope you all like it!   
  
  
Her bright auburn hair gently blew across her cheek as she stood at the edge of the cliff. She wasn't cold, even though the scraps that she wore were hardly clothes. Her bare feet were covered by the long blades of grass that covered all of the mountains. She sat there silently listening to the last sounds of the night, waiting for morning.   
  
The sun rose slowly, covered almost completely by clouds. "Ella!!" She heard her name called over the field, her alone time over. If only she could have a few more minutes to herself! But your stepmother needs you. You can't risk upsetting her, she thought. She ran as fast as she could back to her house.  
  
A Dutch style house with flowers on the window, and a chimney on the roof, should have been a cozy place. But it was not. The screams of her stepmothers and stepsisters, whenever she did something wrong, could be heard from miles away, the townspeople had gotten used to it. Most of felt sorry for the little girl, some were too busy with their work to care. "A misfortune for the poor child. Better than living in the mines."  
  
They were right. The mines were worse. Orphans and children that the mine owners bought worked all day with almost no food and water. They had no fun, just work. Ella was grateful that her stepmother hadn't gotten that greedy and sold her. She had to be especially good this week. This week the slave miners were looking for more children in her area. And it would be wrong to think that her stepmother wouldn't sell her in an instant.   
  
As she reached the house she could see the serving maid, Della outside sweeping the porch. "Hurry child." Della said, "I'd be careful. 'Tis the week when childrn 're bought. Wouldn't want to upset the misses." Ella quickly ran in to the kitchen, where her stepmother stood, holding a pan, her eyes wide with anger.   
  
"Ella!" She screeched. "How many times do I have to tell you! You are to be here on time, to make breakfast! Adronelia and Francsia must maintain their perfect figures!" She pointed at her two daughters who were in the corner table, smiling. It took everything Ella had learned not to laugh. Adronelia and Francsia had anything but perfect figures. Adronelia was fat, but Francsia was fattest. They both had chubby cheeks that looked as if they hid their leftover food in them. Their dresses ripped regularly, Ella often spent many late nights up sewing the dresses. She covered her mouth to try and stifle her laugh but her stepmother heard it first. "Don't laugh at me, child. Just for that you will have no breakfast, lunch, or dinner." Her smile grew wide, "And don't think I haven't considered selling you to those slave miners. You can be replaced. I've only kept you all these years because I loved your father. But now that I think about it, I think that I have given enough generosity to you Ella. I shall have the slave traders come over this afternoon." She sneered. "Now get to work!" She shouted and threw the pot on to the counter with a clang and left the room, her daughters in tow.  
  
Ella sat down on a stool and began to cry. Only to hear a knock on the back door right next to her. She looked through the peephole. It was Peter. Her best friend in the world, the only person that she could ever open up to. She opened the door to let Peter in. Quietly, she didn't want her stepmother to get any madder. "Ella, what's wrong?" Peter exclaimed. Ella put a finger to her lips to shush him. Quietly, they left the house and went to the barn to talk.  
  
As soon as they got in to the barn, Peter wrapped Ella in to a hug. "What's wrong." He spoke with such concern, Ella would miss him so much! She began to cry again. "Step..mothers..going....to...sell..me!" She choked out. "To the mines?" Peter whispered, shocked. Ella nodded her head. Peter spoke, his eyes glazed over, "Father always threatened that he'd sell me to the miners, but mum would have nothing to do with it. He said it would turn me in to a man, but mum will never let him. I think he's joking when he says it anyways... but you? What will I do with out you? You're the only person that I can actually talk to!" He pulled her in to a tight hug, and Ella felt the sleeve of her shirt get wet. They sat like that until Ella heard her stepmother scream her name. "Well, I guess this is goodbye." She sat to Peter, her voice quavering. He reached in to his pocket and pulled out a silver chain with a small glowing stone in it. "This was my grandma's. She gave it to me before she died. The rock in the middle is supposed to bring good luck... You need this more than I do." He pressed the necklace in to her hand. "Oh Peter!" Ella was about to give the necklace back and say more when she heard her name screamed again. " I have to go, Peter." She ran out of the barn and across the field to the house the necklace in her hand.   
  
As soon as she walked in to the house a hand grabbed her and sat her in a chair. The man who grabbed her, was a very old man judging by the wrinkles on his face. He smiled, showing the few teeth he had in is mouth. They were a dark shade of brown, showing that he had never brushed them before. He lifted up her arms and poked and prodded her muscles. "How old is she?" The old man asked Ella's stepmother after he had finished "examining" Ella's body. "Thirteen. She'll be fourteen in about two months. "Very good. Very good." The old man whispered to him self. "I'll give you a hundred pounds for her" "Surely she can be worth more than a hundred pounds? After all-" "No." The old man cut the stepmother "Unless you want me to go lower?" Ella's stepmother shook her head no. "Very good." The old man pulled out a bag that was definitely filled with coins and handed to the stepmother. Ella watched the bag carefully, knowing that her life was just sold away. "Come, slave." The old man pulled her off the chair. He was extremely strong for his age. The words stung in her ears. She was a slave. She was to shocked to cry, scream, or even fight. She had been sold like property. She could not believe that anyone, even her stepmother, could do something like this. She felt to shocked to breathe, her vision was suddenly blurred by the sudden flow of tears. She felt, more than saw, herself being thrown in to a wooden carriage. More like a jail cell, with the metal bars on the back. I am going to jail, she thought.   
  
*~*~*~*~*  
The rattle of the metal bars on the wood was driving Ella mad. Her growling stomach only made things worse. She'd been traveling for days, and every time she'd ask for food, the drive would laugh a screeching laugh, and Ella decided that she didn't want to hear that laugh any more, she'd just starve. The sun came in from three cracks at the bottom of two of the wooden planks that she sat on, and from how much light there was she could tell what time it was. There was almost no light. "Soon it will be pitch black in here" She sighed from talking to herself. Ella felt the ground for a soft place to sleep. She moved her hand slowly across the wooden planks, still unbelieving what was happening. Her sleeve caught in one of the boards, and when she pulled her arm out a chunk of the wood came out. She could barely see the pavement because the sun had just set. She stuck her hand through the hole, she couldn't fit her whole body through it, yet. She smiled, and covered back up the hole. She pulled the sleeves up her dress up and ripped them. She folded them up and laid her head down to rest. She half closed her eyes and thought of ways to make the hole bigger. She thought of Peter and felt the necklace in the folds of her skirt. She took it out and fastened it around her neck. She stared up at the boards that were above her.  
  
She slept, dreaming of the next day.   
  
  
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	2. Running Away

Wow! I got so many reviews so fast! I was surprised, I've never gotten this many reviews on any of my stories so fast. I'm hoping everyone is enjoying this. Please review! Oh yeah, thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I really enjoyed reading those.  
  
*~*~*~*  
Ella woke up early a smile on her face. She lifted the small wooden plank that was covering the hole, and began to rip the weak planks apart. Finally, a couple of hours later, she had made a hole large enough for her to slide threw.   
  
She waited for the right time to get out. The carriage slowed down at a bridge, and Ella slipped out unnoticed.  
  
She found her self in a place she had never seen before. She quickly hid behind the nearest tree, in case the driver looked back. After a couple of minutes, she couldn't hear the carriage anymore. She wandered through the forest, stopping to stare at every animal she saw.   
  
After a while of wandering through the forest, she came to a small town. People walked quickly past her on the streets. She walked right in to the building that had the sign inn above it. She walked in to the bar part of it. She coughed from all the smoke in the air. She could hear the laughter of the men playing cards, and the whispers of the smugglers.   
  
A man walked up to her. He slightly swayed, and Ella could tell he was drunk. He gave her a wide smile that showed all of his teeth. Most of them were missing, the rest were tinted yellow. "Why what do we have here?" He let out a laugh, and Ella began to slowly step away from him. He took a step forward and put his hand on her cheek. The smell made her want to throw up. She could see him lean forward, getting ready to kiss her. A hand grabbed on her shoulder and pulled her out of the way just in time. The man stumbled forward and with out something to lean on he fell down. Bursts of laughter erupted from the bar.   
  
Ella turned to the person who had pulled her away. It was a small girl, with flaming red hair and rosy cheeks. The girl smiled at her.  
  
"You have to be careful around this sort." She said with a heavy accent.   
  
"Thanks." Ella said, smiling back. The man stood up and grunted at the two girls, lunging for them.  
  
The red haired girl pushed Ella out of the way and took a step towards the man.   
  
"Brutis!" She shouted in his face. "How dare you? Ya' know that pa wouldn't go for this! Do ya want me to kick your ugly face out? Now, stop this and get goin back to yer chair!" Brutis took a step back and trudged back to his chair.   
  
The girl spun around to face Ella. "Sory' miss. We get a lot of drunken gamblers around this time. May I get you somthin'?"   
  
Ella shook her head no. "I have no money." She replied barely above a whisper. The girl laughed. "On the house then, miss?" Ella let out a small grin as the girl led her to a table in the corner. She left and came back a few minutes later with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Ella drank it her throat dry from not having anything to drink for hours. The red haired girl sat in the chair across from her watching her drink.   
  
"My names Miranda, but you can call me Mira."  
  
"I'm Ella" She replied in-between chugs of the warm drink.  
  
"Ella, do you want a job?" Ella looked up from her mug blankly. "What?" The girl let out a laugh. "Our last waitress just quit a week ago. Pa's been looking for one for a while, but he can't find the right type of girl. Yu just look right for it. We'd pay ya well, and you could have a room here."   
  
Ella stared blankly at the table. A job? The only work she had done was for her stepmother and stepsisters. Of course she had waited on them hand and foot. She could do this. After all, she'd get a bed to sleep in and food to eat.   
  
She thought for an another couple minutes. What have I got to lose? I don't have a home anymore.  
  
Mira was smiling at her. She would make a good friend, Ella told herself. She cleared her throat and gave a smile to match Mira's.   
  
"Yes. I'd love to."   
*~*~*~*  
  
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	3. Waitress

I hope you all like this chapter!  
Luv,  
Shaina  
  
  
  
Ella ran her hand threw her dark brown hair. She sifted her fingers along every strand. She absentmindedly twirled it around her finger listening to Mira's mother, Kalli, talk about what she was going to do today.  
  
She was enjoying her new life. She didn't have to wake up early, she was given three meals a day, and she had a warm bed at night. She got used to the bustle of the Inn and being a waitress. Within the first week she had gotten used to the routine of her work. She started to learn the names of the regulars in the bar the second week, and by the third she felt like she had been there forever. Now it had been almost a year, she had turned 14 some where in the middle, and she felt like family. She would stay up late talking to Mira about her past. Everything that she had done with her stepmother and stepsisters felt like a storytale. She could repeat the days over and over again and she could feel and see the memories and the scars fade. She began to forget about everything in her past, even peter. She still wore the necklace, but now it was a trinket, worthless. The stone had stopped glowing, and the chain had rusted. She listened to Mira's mother talk about the day, fumbling with the wrinkles in her dress.   
  
"Now, today Ella, yu and Mira have a half day. Tis afternoon yu two can go to market. Bie yorself a pretty dress with the wages that we've been givin ya." Kalli said in her motherly voice. Ella's heart leapt with joy. She had been saving and she finely had enough money for the dress she had seen at the dressmaker's shop. She drifted off in to thought thinking about the dress. It was like a ball gown, fit for a ball, and something in side her said that she needed that dress.   
  
She came out of her thoughts to hear Kalli tell her to go off and waitress in the bar. She would have liked to be upstairs chatting with Mira as the two of them folded sheets and made beds. But it was ok to be in the bar in the morning, all the people were quiet with hangovers from drinking too much, or silently counting how much money they had lost before.   
  
She quickly tied on her apron. The cotton cloth was simple with light blue stripes down the sides. It flowed down to the bottom of her dress, with a pattern of lace on the edges.   
  
She liked the bar in the mornings. It was quiet and calm, with a few overnight customers drinking their morning coffee. She would have some time to mend her dress before she and Mira would go to market. She kept her mind on the dress that she was going to buy.   
  
She walked out in to the bar and took the orders of the three men that were there. She walked in to the kitchen to get them their drinks. She got them and walked back out. After she had made everyone happy, she sat down and mended her dress. Before she knew it, her shift was over, and Kalli came out with her wages.   
  
"Be good wit this. Spend it wizly" Kalli said like she always did.   
  
Ella laughed. "I will." She bounded up the stairs to grab Mira. After another few minutes of putting on their shawls, they both ran down the stairs together, and escaped threw the front door before Mira's parents could change their minds.   
  
  
  
  
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	4. The dressmaker

Hey everyone! Its been a long time since I've updated and I'm very sorry for that. I've had a pretty bad year and I haven't had the time to really sit down and write. Here's a new chapter, hope that everyone likes it! Shaina

The streets bustled with life. The inn was a few blocks away from the shops that they were going to, and so they walked through the bustling traffic that swept through the cities. Horses hooves clattered along with the shouts of small children chased by adults. Merchants shouted out the quality of their goods, while people begged for food. This whole world was alive, and I was still getting used to it. The quiet calm that had once found in my old home, up far away in the mountains, did not exist here. Mira hummed happily next to me as we walked, and as soon as we reached the shops she grabbed my hand. She tugged me in to a few stores, both of them high class shops, filled with old treasures and new things, and we stared at the beautiful beaded silks and feathered dresses that we would always be wearing in our dreams, but never be able to afford. We chatted happily, changing topics with every shop, we skipped around and danced like little girls, buying little trinkets from the small stands in-between the shops. We stopped and glanced in the shoemakers shop, laughing at some of the colors and designs of the shoes in the window.

"Can you imagine a lady of the court wearing that?" Mira laughed out, while pointing at a pair of blue shoes that had a point on the end with strings of beads and feathers hanging out.

"I can just see her talking to the prince, and he is falling in love with her, until she sits in to a chair and he sees her shoes." I said, and then whispered with a laugh, "He would walk away, disgusted, never to speak to her again!"

"Maybe he would feel sorry for her and marry her out of pity," Mira suggested. We both thought about that for a minute, and then erupted in short bursts of laughter. Mira leaned back against the wall, and pulled up her skirts, pretending that she was wearing the shoes. She stuck her head up, like a lady, and stepped lightly around in a circle. She then looked at her feet, and pretended to be shocked. She jumped back as if she was wearing a snake. We then both began to come up with all kinds of different stories for people wearing the ugly shoes.

"The king would make a proclamation that anyone caught wearing those shoes would have to walk barefoot."

"Until he caught the queen wearing them." I was laughing so hard that it was hard to stay standing.

"The shoes would be banned, and people would have to buy them in secret." Mira let out a snort, and a couple of boys who were walking past us stared.

After a few minutes, the two of us were able to hold in our laughter, and started towards the dressmakers shop. We walked in silence, enjoying the sounds of the world around us. We passed the bakery, and the bakers son gave us both a half-grin, which was really for Mira.

"He likes you." I whispered to Mira, and was replied with a gentle smack on my shoulder. Even though Mira was almost a year older than me, I still towered over her by a few inches.

"Do you like him?" I teased her after a few minutes of silence. We began to walk again.

She gave me one of her blushing-with-out-turning-red-looks, "No, never. I- well, its just that, he's- umm, not my type." She picked up her skirts and walked a little bit faster, and didn't notice me stifle a grin. We made it to the dressmakers shop on bland gossipy conversation. Even though Mira wasn't vain, she still knew almost everything about everyone, and would repeat everything she had heard in the bar to everyone who would listen.

The light chiming of a bell was heard as we entered the shop. The dressmaker's shop was a fairy tale of its own, filled with willowy curtains of soft gold and silky blue. The dresses, in all shapes and sizes hung on thin strings that were strung through out the store. Mira and I slipped off our shoes, and relaxed our toes for a moment in the soft carpet. It was the same as the floors in parts of the royal castle. I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to wake up and be able to walk on a floor like this, be able to linger in the soft warmth of the ground, instead of the ice-cold floors of the inn.

I heard a bit of chatter and realized that Mira was already sorting through dresses, picking out some to try on. In the back of the store the clerk (who was also the owner) Mister Nauto Le Peau- everyone just called him Lee though, was talking to an angry customer. He seemed happy to end their conversation and come to greet us.

"My sweet children," he said with a twinkle in his eyes, "I have been waiting for you both to come. I have a beautiful dress that just came in from up north that would match your eyes dear Mira-" a loud cough came from the back of the shop, and I noticed that the lady he had been arguing with before we came in, was still standing in the same place. Her eyes were shooting daggers at both of us and I bent my head to avoid her gaze. Mira paused her sorting for a moment, and then shrugged and started up again.

"Mister Peau, I am not satisfied and demand that you fix this." Her voice was like paper, thin and lacking emotion. Her face was young, but her eyes looked old. Her lips were curled in a bitter smile, and she stood like she was royalty. I doubted she was.

Lee sighed, and frowned as he walked slowly towards her.

She mumbled, "When I become Queen-" Lee cut her off with a raised eyebrow and a semi-hidden grin. "Yes, yes, my dear. When you become Queen you shall ruin my business. Very well. I shall wait for the day. But until then..." His voice trailed off with both of his eyes on the door.

She glared at him, then with a small huff she turned and brushed passed me and slammed out the door.

"Very unlady like." Lee mumbled, "the kingdom would be ruined if the prince chooses her."

"Is the prince finally choosing a bride?" I asked, not really caring, it was just for the sake of conversation. I was too young in my opinion to be interested in the thought of boys let alone marriage. Lee told me all about the balls that the prince was having in the near future as I began to search for my dress, I had hidden in an assortment of fabric scraps the weekend before, I hadn't wanted anyone to take it.

"Searching for that dress of yours?" Lee asked, and I nodded. "Well its not there. If you hadn't wanted anyone else to buy it you should have told me. I'm sorry dear, someone else found it and bought it."

I felt the air rush out of my lungs, all that saving and waiting! All for nothing! Even though I couldn't rationally think of a reason that I would need the dress, it was too large and too frilly for working at the inn, something deep inside me had wanted it so badly.

A single tear slipped from my eye, I couldn't believe I was crying over a dress! Lee stood above me with a small white handkerchief. "My dear," he said to me, "I did not know that the dress meant so much to you. If I had only known-" He paused for a second to think, "well, I do have a beautiful dress that is the lightest of blues with a fine beautiful lace..." He described the dress for a few more minutes and then showed it to me.

It was beautiful, and was made of a thin fabric that seemed like soft sand under my fingertips. But it wasn't what I had come for. _Oh well_, I thought and gave up. I sat and watched Mira find a dress for herself. She was quite entertaining and I watched her as she tried the dresses, it was almost like she was becoming a new person with each dress she tried on. She spoke with a new accent for each one, and even though some of them were so bad I barely recognized them. She made Lee laugh a couple of times, but he didn't pay much attention to us after a while, people came in desperate, in need of last minute alterations. Apparently the second ball for the prince was tomorrow. Girls of all shapes and sizes came in, their mothers following them, fretting over every ruffle, every bead. I felt a slight dip in my heart, because I almost wished that I had a mother like that. Even though they were demanding and forcing their daughters to marry someone because he would one day be king.

Mira tried on quite a few dresses, before she finally found one that she wanted. It was all white, and it looked good with her red curls. I found a nice plain serving dress. We paid for our dresses and with a small sigh, I put my shoes back on. We walked mostly in silence, there was only an occasional remark or whisper, as we walked back to the inn.

Back to tending to the drunks who had grown used to their headaches, and waking up early in the morning to press my feet on the ice-cold floor.


End file.
